Helicopter operators are assigned to a variety of missions. Most of these missions are safe and present no danger. For instance, helicopters are often utilized for point-to-point transportation of passengers, observation of traffic and weather, and myriad of rather mundane assignments. This is especially true of helicopters assigned to news organizations. However, these same helicopters and operators, are also sent on dangerous assignments, such as to observe riots, crimes, or other hazardous conditions where there is danger to the operators from fugitives, rioters, criminals, hostage takers and the like.
Protective devices for aircraft operators are known to the prior art. For instance, the Riffe patent U.S. Pat. No. 3,606,452 shows an armored vehicle seat adopted for aircraft use. Babbaza U.S. Pat. No. 5,164,536 discloses an armor resistant seat primarily utilizing ceramic-matrix composites as the ballistic resistant material. Dunbar U.S. Pat. No. 5,200,256 shows a variety of armored linings for use with vehicles of one sort or another.